babied

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of baby.

   The coach babied his star player, sparing him from the toughest drills.

   For decades the company babied its flagship product with constant updates.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty here: the coach babied his star in the simple past, and the star has been babied all season with have or be. The y of baby becomes ied, as in carried. Both verb meanings behind it are transitive, coddling a person or fussing over a thing such as a product, so the form needs an object or turns passive. The passive participle shades easily into the adjective for spoiled.

2. 2
   adjective

   Spoiled or coddled; treated with too much indulgent care and protected from difficulty.

   Like a hothouse flower raised in shelter that wilts the first time it meets open weather.

   Critics dismissed him as a babied star who couldn't handle real pressure.

   Their babied eldest daughter expected the staff to manage every small chore for her.

   Similarspoiled, pampered, coddled, cosseted

   Note

   Here the participle has hardened into a true adjective, and the test is grading: one child can be more babied than another, and one the most babied of the lot. Before a noun, as in a babied star or a babied eldest daughter, it judges rather than reports, carrying the disapproval of spoiled. After was, it can read either way, as something done to a person or as what that person has become.

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